open source systems for libraries

MARC

from the Koha list: "This will be the last release before we start adding MARC support... This release is mainly bug fixes. The new functionality is a script that when added to you apache config can
provide koha in different languages. Please read the scripts/translator/translator.readme file for more details."

Congrats to the folks over at Technology Resource Foundation for actually delivering a Technical Beta Preview of OpenBook roughly upon their promised date. It looks to be an already working system, guaranteed to wow (if the OSSIG session at ALA last month is an accurate gauge), if still at the to-be-expected not-fully-polished state of an 0.8 release.

OpenBook is a Koha-inspired, GPL-licensed system, apparently rewritten from scratch in more than 20k lines of php. [Update 2001-7-16: see this post on the Koha list for TRF's announcement and more explanation of the relationship between OpenBook and Koha. -dc]

Peter writes: "Avanti version 0.4 pre-release 1 is complete and is available at the Avanti website. Included in this release is the first GUI search client (finally!). A running demo of this client is available at the web site. Give it a try! A more in depth explanation of the interface design is available here.

Version 0.4 represents a major step forward for Avanti. This version defines all the fundamental components of the system from back-end DBMS to GUI client. 0.4 also defines the overall client-server architecture of Avanti and the communications protocol used between client and server. The next release will be 0.4 proper, a much cleaner and better documented rendition of what is in this pre-release.

Gregg writes: "New addition of the wonderful marc-record manipulation tool marc.pm. This one has the added feature of being able to name the HTML fields when using marc2html. Thanks MR. Summers!" Complete docs and a line-by-line tutorial example are available at marcpm.sourceforge.net.

Peter writes to oss4lib-discuss: "Over the past couple of months I have done a complete rewite and and reorganization of Avanti. The results so far can be seen here. It includes its own integrated database management system, PicoDB; and ARMS, a sort of a hyperlinked object database that will eventually be a key component for the future OPAC module.

This pre-release is meant as a reference point for subsequent development towards version 0.4 and to make it available for anyone interested to look at and play with. Its rough, with still a lot of fleshing out to do and user interfaces to put in place but that will be coming very soon!"

Sebastian writes: "Index Data has just made its first release of a Z39.50 Server module for Perl. It provides a pretty simple API which hides most of the complexities of Z39.50 and network programming in general, so all you have to do is provide a bit of code to interface to your resource. You can draw on all the usual Perl tools to talk to back-end databases, create response records in XML, MARC, etc." Built using YAZ by the people who brought us YAZ to begin with... definitely worth a close look.

from Derek over perl4lib: "Basically a bugfix and sanity checks after Elizabeth Shaw noticed that pack_008 left the 008 field empty. Also added a ship script to automate the creation of
the .tar.gz version. Please beat on this and let the list know of any problems..." Go get it at marcpm.sourceforge.net. [p.s. hey Liz, that you? how's that reference MOO doin'? ;)]

new in 0.5.2 are MARC downloads (thanks to jake2marc.pl), more reliable XML feeds, bug and schema fixes, data available from sourceforge, added html comments to simplify results parsing for local holdings matching. go get it at the main jake site.

Mark wrote to oss4lib-list: "jake2marc is a utility that can create simple USMARC records for the full-text journals in databases listed in the jake project.

jake2marc is incorporated into and distributed with the standard jake application, and currently appears as a "Download as MARC" option in the database list and in the record for each database. jake2marc can also be installed and used separately from the main jake application because it queries jake for data over the net. The Perl source code is available for people interested in installing jake2marc on their own web server and modifying it to suit their own library's needs. jake2marc is currently under development and is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).